I'm surprised about the region lock, lots of people I know bought the WoW Cataclysm expansion ordered from the US with no issues, shipped to Australia. Though, we do play on 'US' servers.
You do realize that metric based recipes books exist? It's not that hard to translate recipes from imperial to metric, I have to do it from time to time for old family recipes now. Most 'old' recipes are fairly elastic in their quantities anyway, what with 'accurate' measures like a pinch, a dash, a jigger, etc...
Out of curiosity, in your fantasy scenario, how does the burglar/stalker/psycho get this information? It is stored locally on your phone or the computer you synch to and not broadcast further.
If they have access to that information they have already, they have already broken in. They probably don't need the data to cause damage at this point.
Note: my parents live in the country. My iPhone is with Optus, and if I'd known then what I know now about how shitty their coverage is I probably would have gone Telstra from day one for the phone. My parents only have dial up. The logic behind getting 3G for the tablet is that I can get internet when visiting them with better speeds than dial up for the most part without my mother worrying about using up her monthly quota.
I think it would be awesome if you could somehow bundle your home internet data plan with nominated phones and tablet devices. In our house we have DSL, 2 smart phones and I have an iPad 3G on order. That will be 4 internet data plans for 2 people.
The data plan for the iPad is actually quite reasonable with a 12 month pre-paid subscription through Telstra and about the same as one month's phone bill.
Who knows, by the time the first pre-paid account runs out, maybe they will have wrapped their heads around the concept of shared data plans.
At one stage when I fixed computers professionally, our largest regional competitor shut down (they ran 3 or more workshops), the overflow of their customers in combination with half our staff quitting in the same 2 week period meant our repair queue went from approximately 4 days to 6-8 weeks almost overnight. It was ugly.
If you are doing this professionally, fine. You're getting paid to deal with the headaches, you generally get paid an hourly rate to sort it out.
The referenced article refers to someone telling a friend that their problem is not something they can fix in 10 minutes for free. I feel this is totally reasonable.
Ive lost count of the amount of free support I gave to friends and family when I used to fix computers for a living. Some of it I was happy to do either due to the relationship I had with the person or the amount of good will they had generated through our personal history. Others were imposing on what was little more than an acquaintance to avoid paying a professional when they had no intention of ever repaying the favour.
I have the same concern with the whole cloud concept and things like having all your email hosted on the gmail servers, etc...
My husband is constantly nagging me to move all my email to gmail, I like having a local archive that I know is being backed up daily thank you very much...
You said: "Its quite rare I can find someone who's had a iPlayer(Pod, Touch, Shuffle) that has had one live for more then a year and a half.", I was pointing out that this was anecdotal, and that my anecdotal evidence had as much validity as yours.
As for going to your local Apple Store - I spent nearly 10 years working in the Apple Reseller chain at various locations. Generally their hardware failure rates back then were in the 1-2% of units sold range, and this was during the time of the PB190/5300 and Performa 5200 debacle.
Any mass produced manufactured goods are going to have a number of units which are less than perfect. A handful of personal experiences does not a meaningful statistic make.
Or maybe that point is going entirely over your head.
When you say 'the eject button' were you referring to the software command or the mechanical lever normally triggered by a paperclip.
If you meant you actually disassembled the CD-ROM drive to remove the disc, I hope it worked afterwards, cos you've blown the OEM component warranty by breaking the seals on the assembly, they aren't meant to be disassembled and can be thrown off alignment very easily.
I see your anecdote and raise you another anecdote. The residents of my household have owned multiple Apple products, including iPods, iPhones and assorted desktop and laptop computers over a period of about 20 years and have had very few hardware issues.
The hardest to resolve was an intermittent temperature related video issue on an iMac which was resolved under warranty (AppleCare) and which only exhibited when playing processor intensive games at high resolution.
I still have a Gen 2 iPod which works perfectly fine and was used daily until I got my iPhone 3GS. We still have a working PB150 and original Tangerine iBook. I think both those laptops had their hard drives replaced at some point for capacity reasons.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm surprised about the region lock, lots of people I know bought the WoW Cataclysm expansion ordered from the US with no issues, shipped to Australia. Though, we do play on 'US' servers.
The date on my pre-order for Diablo III is 5 May 2009. I don't think Elder Scrolls V coming out is going to affect my purchase.
Next on Channel Troll; Dancing with the Stasi...
The iMacs came in 5 flavours, maybe the Pizza will too.
You laugh, but a friend of mine did her doctoral thesis on chlamydia in koalas. It is a serious problem threatening an already at risk species.
I'd prefer you gave it to this Hanson.
You do realize that metric based recipes books exist? It's not that hard to translate recipes from imperial to metric, I have to do it from time to time for old family recipes now. Most 'old' recipes are fairly elastic in their quantities anyway, what with 'accurate' measures like a pinch, a dash, a jigger, etc...
Out of curiosity, in your fantasy scenario, how does the burglar/stalker/psycho get this information? It is stored locally on your phone or the computer you synch to and not broadcast further.
If they have access to that information they have already, they have already broken in. They probably don't need the data to cause damage at this point.
Note: my parents live in the country. My iPhone is with Optus, and if I'd known then what I know now about how shitty their coverage is I probably would have gone Telstra from day one for the phone. My parents only have dial up. The logic behind getting 3G for the tablet is that I can get internet when visiting them with better speeds than dial up for the most part without my mother worrying about using up her monthly quota.
I think it would be awesome if you could somehow bundle your home internet data plan with nominated phones and tablet devices. In our house we have DSL, 2 smart phones and I have an iPad 3G on order. That will be 4 internet data plans for 2 people.
The data plan for the iPad is actually quite reasonable with a 12 month pre-paid subscription through Telstra and about the same as one month's phone bill.
Who knows, by the time the first pre-paid account runs out, maybe they will have wrapped their heads around the concept of shared data plans.
I hope you have redundant UPSes...
We lose power just long enough for my desktop to power down every couple of weeks atm.
Note to self - the UPS in the study really REALLY needs replacing now.
I must be tired, I parsed "giant file" as "giraffe file" and wondered what new protocol you were referring to...
As far as I know, in Australia, Attempted Suicide is also a crime, but one which is rarely prosecuted.
Someday we'll be able to rewire bad brains
The scary part is who decides what is a bad brain.
"Younger than she are happy mothers made" Romeo and Juliet (I.ii.12)
Of course, that's a view of another age.
They are obviously young and foolish.
No, really. Though the fact that they know and use ascii art does argue the reverse.
The lawn mowing service I use uses their business card as the bill, which they leave in my mail box. Saves on postage, and I know the payment details.
At one stage when I fixed computers professionally, our largest regional competitor shut down (they ran 3 or more workshops), the overflow of their customers in combination with half our staff quitting in the same 2 week period meant our repair queue went from approximately 4 days to 6-8 weeks almost overnight. It was ugly.
Fortunately I had just put my coffee down before I got to this response. My monitor and keyboard are also grateful for this fortuitous timing.
If you are doing this professionally, fine. You're getting paid to deal with the headaches, you generally get paid an hourly rate to sort it out.
The referenced article refers to someone telling a friend that their problem is not something they can fix in 10 minutes for free. I feel this is totally reasonable.
Ive lost count of the amount of free support I gave to friends and family when I used to fix computers for a living. Some of it I was happy to do either due to the relationship I had with the person or the amount of good will they had generated through our personal history. Others were imposing on what was little more than an acquaintance to avoid paying a professional when they had no intention of ever repaying the favour.
I
Mmmmm.... Pancakes....
I have the same concern with the whole cloud concept and things like having all your email hosted on the gmail servers, etc...
My husband is constantly nagging me to move all my email to gmail, I like having a local archive that I know is being backed up daily thank you very much...
You said: "Its quite rare I can find someone who's had a iPlayer(Pod, Touch, Shuffle) that has had one live for more then a year and a half.", I was pointing out that this was anecdotal, and that my anecdotal evidence had as much validity as yours.
As for going to your local Apple Store - I spent nearly 10 years working in the Apple Reseller chain at various locations. Generally their hardware failure rates back then were in the 1-2% of units sold range, and this was during the time of the PB190/5300 and Performa 5200 debacle.
Any mass produced manufactured goods are going to have a number of units which are less than perfect. A handful of personal experiences does not a meaningful statistic make.
Or maybe that point is going entirely over your head.
When you say 'the eject button' were you referring to the software command or the mechanical lever normally triggered by a paperclip.
If you meant you actually disassembled the CD-ROM drive to remove the disc, I hope it worked afterwards, cos you've blown the OEM component warranty by breaking the seals on the assembly, they aren't meant to be disassembled and can be thrown off alignment very easily.
I see your anecdote and raise you another anecdote. The residents of my household have owned multiple Apple products, including iPods, iPhones and assorted desktop and laptop computers over a period of about 20 years and have had very few hardware issues.
The hardest to resolve was an intermittent temperature related video issue on an iMac which was resolved under warranty (AppleCare) and which only exhibited when playing processor intensive games at high resolution.
I still have a Gen 2 iPod which works perfectly fine and was used daily until I got my iPhone 3GS. We still have a working PB150 and original Tangerine iBook. I think both those laptops had their hard drives replaced at some point for capacity reasons.
Does my anecdote cancel out yours?